What is energy

In the context of chemistry, energy is an attribute of a substance as a consequence of its atomic, molecular or aggregate structure. Since a chemical transformation is accompanied by a change in one or more of these kinds of structure, it is invariably accompanied by an increase or decrease of energy of the substances involved. Some energy is transferred between the surroundings and the reactants of the reaction in the form of heat or light, thus the products of a reaction may have more or less energy than the reactants. A reaction is said to be exothermic if the final state is lower on the energy scale than the initial state; in case of endothermic reactions the situation is otherwise.

Chemical reactions are invariably not possible unless the reactants surmount an energy barrier known as the activation energy. The speed of a chemical reaction (at given temperature T) is related to the activation energy E, by the Boltzmann's population factor e − E / kT - that is the probability of molecule to have energy greater than or equal to E at the given temperature T. This exponential dependence of a reaction rate on temperature is known as the Arrhenius equation. The activation energy necessary for a chemical reaction can be in the form of heat, light, electricity or mechanical force in the form of ultrasound.[42]

A related concept free energy, which incorporates entropy considerations too, is a very useful means for predicting the feasibility of a reaction and determining the state of equilibrium of a chemical reaction, in chemical thermodynamics. A reaction is feasible only if the total change in the Gibbs free energy is negative, \Delta G \le 0 \,; if it is equal to zero the chemical reaction is said to be at equilibrium.

There are only a limited possible states of energy for electrons, atoms and molecules. These are determined by the rules of quantum mechanics, which require quantization of energy of a bound system. The atoms/molecules in a higher energy state are said to be excited. The molecules/atoms of substance in an excited energy state are often much more reactive, that is amenable to chemical reactions.

The phase of a substance is invariably determined by its energy and those of its surroundings. When the intermolecular forces of a substance are such that energy of the surroundings is not sufficient to overcome them, it occurs in a more ordered phase like liquid or solid as is the case with water (H2O), a liquid at room temperature because its molecules are bound by hydrogen bonds.[43] Whereas hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a gas at room temperature and standard pressure, as its molecules are bound by weaker dipole-dipole interactions.

The transfer of energy from one chemical substance to other depend on the size of energy quanta emitted from one substance. However, heat energy is often transferred more easily from almost any substance to another because the phonons responsible for vibrational and rotational energy levels in a substance have much less energy then photons invoked for the electronic energy transfer. Thus, because vibrational and rotational energy levels are closely spaced then electronic energy levels, heat is relatively more easily transferred between substances while light or other forms of electronic energy are not. For example, ultraviolet electromagnetic radiation is not transferred with as much felicity, from one substance to another, as thermal or electrical energy.

The existence of characteristic energy levels for different chemical substances is useful for their identification by the analysis of spectral lines of different kinds of spectra often used in chemical spectroscopy e.g. IR, microwave, NMR, ESR etc. This is used to identify the composition of remote objects - like stars and far galaxies - by analyzing their radiation.